


When Alone Isn't Protection

by awesomeresides



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Drug Use, Gen, The Sign of Three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awesomeresides/pseuds/awesomeresides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After leaving the wedding early, Sherlock goes back to an empty flat and a hidden leather case with the only escape he has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Alone Isn't Protection

Sherlock gently shuts the door to his flat – only his flat and not jointly John’s and his and that’s wrong that’s not how it’s supposed to be – with a soft _click_ in the still night air. He doesn’t exactly shrug off his coat; it’s a much subtler action than that but with less finesse and grace than is normal for him. He’s too far away to actually care where his coat lands when he drops it.

The flat is so cold and empty without John or Mary in it, and even Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade would bring warmth to the rooms. He glances at the fireplace as he drifts to his bedroom and wonders if a fire would help. The only color he can see right now is grey, and the bright white-orange and blue crackle of a fire would bring back some color, wouldn’t it? Then again, so would John’s red button-up and Mary’s favorite earrings. The way they interact and click in a way Sherlock and John didn’t brings Sherlock’s world into Technicolor, and now even that’s gone. He shivers and wills himself to stop imagining, no, _seeing_ plain as day, John sitting in his chair.

In his room, he kneels at the foot of his bed as a religious man does at an alter. He pops one of the floorboards up out of place, setting it aside and reaching past insulation to grasp a small, worn leather case. Meticulously, he sets the case on the floor in front of him and replaces the floorboard. Everything has to be in order and right and fine and perfect and under _his control-_

He takes his syringe from its resting place, takes the tiny glass vile next to it in his other hand, and stares at the two. He just can’t take all the emotions inside of him that are boiling over in his mind. Sherlock doesn’t understand how he can be happy for his friend yet sad at the same time. The two feelings are complete opposites, contradicting each other in every way he can think of. He doesn’t _understand it_ , and his mind is spinning its wheels trying to figure out how to process emotions this strong, this strange. It’s John’s and Mary’s wedding, and he should be happy for them, elated. He was the best man, a best friend, and he should be grateful.

But he is none of those things.

Sherlock has a strange hollow in his middle reminiscent of the years when he’d spend days alone in his room doing nothing but staring at the ceiling and tracing the patterns of the water stains. But that was so long ago in an era when he only understood how to let feelings glance off of him like a bullet on steel. John showed him how to let the emotions in and how to deal with them; John taught him how to feel the _correct_ way. But now, it is as if he has forgotten everything he has learned and has reverted to the scared twenty-something junkie with glazed eyes and tight lips. He was alone then, and he is alone now. Alone does not protect him anymore.

John is out there with Mary, the woman he loves more than anything in the world, even Sherlock. John said he loved them both, but Sherlock knows that John has found someone nonlethal and pleasant to spend the rest of his life with. John will live to see his hair grow white and his wit dull, where Sherlock never imagined he’d live past thirty. As far as he’s concerned, he’s been living on borrowed time for years, but John gave that time a purpose, a direction. Sherlock watched that drive disappear the moment John and Mary sealed his fate with a kiss.

He will be alone, and he will be devastated by that, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. And so, he takes the needle to the vial and draws the plunger. This dose will keep him aloof and numb until noon at least, but it’s not enough to kill him. He takes off his shoes, lines them up neatly with the others, and curls up on his side under the covers of his bed. He finds the vein without effort, slides the needle under his skin, and depresses the plunger, watching pure bliss push into his blood.


End file.
